Caster and Non-Casters

Sanderson's First Law
Sanderson's Second Law


In short: Magic is not a useful tool for protagonists if it does not have clear, understandable rules (though they don't have to be fully known from the beginning). It is not interesting if it does not have limitations, weaknesses and costs. Magic that is unlimited, reliable and nearly omnipotent is just a bad idea, in a book or in a game - unless it is a purely background thing.

The best magic in hands of players is one that has very clear rules and limits in how it works, but full flexibility in how it can be used. Unfortunately, it's nearly opposite of what D&D does lately (no limits on effects in 3e, hard limits on uses in 4e).
 

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I think a problem with this line of thinking is the assumption that non-casters = no magic. For every spell that a caster slings their is probably a magic item that counters it or goes around it.

For years I derided the "walking equipment rack" fighter that I feel typifies 3e dnd at higher levels. That is until I started reading some of the inspirational sources for dnd Howard, Vance etc. In them you rarely find the warrior types squaring off against demons, wizards or other supernatural threats without some kind of edge. If Conan doesn't have a magic sword, artifact or is himself enchanted by a wizard in some way and he meets some slavering pit monster he runs.

Even in Superhero stuff batman can defeat superman, but he needs a kryptonite ring to do so.

Remember a wizards magic is internal a fighters magic is external.
 

In a typical fantasy setting, I've always wondered if it even makes any sense for a "Fighter" to stand on equal ground as a hero with a Wizard or a spell caster. It's like having super heroes and policemen in the same team.

I love playing the melee warrior guy and 3.5 has always bored me because I always feel like I'm just a glorified NPC grunt. 4E balanced it out but it drove a pro-Wizard friend away from our games.

What does everyone think? Does the melee guy still have a place as a PC if magic is powerful, reliable, and unlimited? On the other hand, is it also pointless if magic isn't impressive, reliable, and greatly limited?

Looking forward to earnest insight to this convention we've come to accept-- cleric wizard fighter thief.

Thanks all!

Warriors can completely make sense next to caster PCs narratively. Think about the Conan movies, there was Mako playing a wizard next to Conan and other noncasters. The wizard PC does not outshine the other non-casters in the parties there and it makes sense.

Combat focused RPGs are their own thing with balance and spotlight considerations so I like the 4e balance of PC magic being mostly a power flavor thing for doing equivalent mechanical impacts to the feats of highly skilled nonmagical combat masters. The part of 4e magic I'm disappointed in is the ritual mechanics with the constant gp cost system.

Magic can be higher powered for combat than skilled combatants, balanced, or less effective very easily and make narrative sense either way.
 

What does everyone think? Does the melee guy still have a place as a PC if magic is powerful, reliable, and unlimited? On the other hand, is it also pointless if magic isn't impressive, reliable, and greatly limited?

I think you're looking at this from the perspective of "D&D doesn't really play like fantasy series x reads", when you should be looking at it from the perspective of "what makes the game more fun for everyone?"

WHO CARES if warriors suck in a bunch of fantasy novels/movies/whatever, as long as PC warriors get to have fun? Aping the "omnipowerful magician with his lackeys" genre is usually only fun for the omnipotent guy while the rest of the players think about how much they'd rather be playing Skyrim or whatever. Then, next session, lo and behold, there's only an omnipotent wizard showing up to play! Everyone else is busy going Fas Ro DAH! all over the place.

OTOH, if the wizard feels useless, you have the same thing in reverse (1e's old "I shot my magic missile for the day, now where is my dagger?" problem). The best road lies in between the two- where each contributes and neither one is just an accessory to the other.

If a player is dissatisfied because he doesn't get to hog all the glory, then maybe a cooperative, social game ain't the best choice for him. Skyrim's great fun, and you get to be the only star.
 

Honestly, I like the challenge. I would never whine about a caster being better than my fighter (or most likely, my rogue).

I don't mean to come off like an elitist or anything, but really, the people doing the whining seem to be forgetting the "roleplaying" part in the term RPG.

My most memorable game was when my Fighter/Rogue hired the other PCs to help me capture and interrogate a mage that double crossed me. We surprised him, had him pinned, the Psionist read his mind to verify my assumption was correct, and then I did a coup de grace to take him out. The mage didn't cast a single spell.

As a DM, I had an NPC kill a powergamed Cleric PC via roleplaying (to lower his defenses) and then followed up with a coup de grace.

If you're just looking at the stats to determine how badass your Fighter is when compared to a caster, then you might be let down. The cool thing about D&D is that you can rely on much more than just stats. I also won't hesitate to run away and get my revenge at a later time. You don't always have to go toe to toe to kill a more powerful opponent.

If you like your Fighter character and think he is a cool PC, you shouldn't care if the Wizard PC is more powerful. The only time balance issues bother me is when I'm the DM and someone intentionally makes a PC to be better than it would be on average. That's only because it affects the challenge ratings of the encounters I would need to use.
 

Without having to watch the video, I am freaking out when a spellcaster tries something like that either.

The problem is really not the power. The problem is that spellcasters usually get their power much faster.

Really? Shall I break that down for you then?

First part of the video: The Javelins.
I see somewhere around 25 javelins in this guy. Because they where all rather the size of spears we wills ay they are large javelins (same bloody thing) which is would make it 25d8 = 112 base damage on average. The character seems quite unfazed by the damage, possible from damage reduction or perhaps a bit of fast healing.


Second part of the video: The random mooks.
There are a bunch of one-shotted mooks, that indicate no real power level of their own. With Cleave, that's about one or two rounds worth of attacks, if the barbarian has Pounce. He has some sort of AoE knockout move, which seems rather similar to a fireball in range of fierceness.

Interlude of the video: Dude was hit by a huge greatsword, which doesn't do damage. Damage reduction or even natural AC takes the hit.

Third part of the Video: The marble column that he lifts and swings about hits pretty damn hard. He manages to carry and run at something with a bloody marble column. Without some kind of feat/feature, this is the most demanding part of the entire video, because running requires you to be under no more than a medium load at best, and that thing is fairly big/heavy. He also seems to do good unarmed damage.

The finale of the video: Finale (Sue me)
The guy is fighting another in fisticuffs, no big deal at all. The giant finger that is cast shows us no mechanics that are superior to crushing fist of spite, which does a max of 20d6 with a reflex save for half damage. Dude is pretty much incapacitated from it with one hit. Can't say if he did or did not make his save, though it seemed like it was a fort save and he made it from my eyes due to the glorified representation of the aftermath. So he took another 20d6/2=35 or so damage. After which he is done.

This is at most level 8-12 territory, the thing is that it's a barbarian doing this instead of a wizard. But while this guy does it with DR, a wizard could all the same feats in the movie at level 10 - if that video clip is a 'same game test' a level 10 wizard can do it fine, and no one would even think twice about it because he is a wizard.

D&D spellcasters are anything and everything. He is a fireball tosser who also happens to conjures illusionary walls, and a guy who turns invisible and summons monsters to kill everything. He is able to blind and stun enemies with battlefield control, translate any language, teleport and turn his self into a wartroll or dragon to fight people.

That's all the stuff that a wizard can do, and does do all the time.

What we have is people saying that it's wrong for the fighter class to be both a heavily armored full plate tank and a mobile swashbuckler type or anything else. The wizard can get away with being seriously everything. Yet handing out proficiency in every martial weapon to the fighter some how gets the realism police out there. Because as a fighter you have to fit in this super small square of what you can or can not do. People are not even content to just say you can't do magic. No, you have to wear a specific type of armor and you have to even specialize in a specific weapon that you will use for the rest of your characters life. You can forget about being a swordsman and an archer, you're lucky if you end up being competent using a longsword and a warhammer. And that's before you start finding magic weapons that further pigeonhole you into more limitations.

That's similar to if we took the wizard class and forced him to choose a single spell that he would be able to cast, and told them, This is all you can cast. Maybe you learn little variations on it or make the spell a bit stronger, but you never learn anything else. Ever regardless of what happens.

Just imagine that for a bit. You never get to learn any other gimmicks other than that one signature spell. Wizard players would be up in arms and furious. And yet this is what the fighter has had to live with since day one.

The fighter really needs to break out of his box. I don't know why the fighter shouldn't be able to be both a lightly armored warrior and a heavily armored warrior, you seriously don't even have to make him choose. He could get abilities for both and depending on if he's strength based or dex based, you go from there. Rogue and fighter are basically the same concept and there is no problem with simply giving the rogue's "out of combat skill abilities" to the fighter. This would help somewhat, but leave the other classes out to dry (specifically the rouge).

What really needs to be done is to simply start ignoring the little boxes that classes are put in and give them the abilities, but just use fluff to explain it. Let the fighter have teleport 100 ft., let the rouge be able to turn invisible, let the barbarian be able to enlarge person himself, you get the idea.

When you have a class that doesn't require magic items to do any of these things, and only uses magic items to further increase his already vast power gap from other classes you really need to sit down and fix it. Especially when all those magic items that the other classes require to be able to do squat are produced by the ones that are already with out them so much more powerful than the ones that don't.

Edit: Damn, I'm ranting again, sorry!
 

B) Every time i remotely see something like this i have a single question to ask, have you people never bloody read mythology? Like, at all?
Beowulf a perfectly normal non-demigod fighter swims for days on end while conserving his strength and loses the race he's in because he has to fight off a dozen sea monsters.
Hercules, mighty high level character he is picks up mountains for :):):):):) and giggles, Cúchulainn shatters mountains with a single spear thrust and goes super saiyan.
Yes, I have read mythology...lots.

Of the three you mentioned, only Beowulf is pretty universally considered to be a mere human. Cúchulainn, depending on the legends you read, is the son of Lug. Hercules IS the son of Zeus. Being semi-divine has its advantages across all mythological traditions.
 

Personally I prefer melee characters so my opinion is rather biased.

Pure-casters just seem to have it all and if the fighters don't have magic items then they are lagging quite a bit, at least at medium level, why can't the warrior predict what the caster is doing? if he needs to point where he wants something to go then the fighter can dodge with his much better reflexes. If magic is very prevelant I would think fighters would learn and memorize what motions and words mean what spells, thus preparing them for when a caster does something. Also it makes very little sense to give so much power to such a person, as no matter how good you are magic of powerful levels means large consequences eventually.

I like most of the former posts though, and agree with many of them...as for asura's wrath well...thats the kind of fighter I love playing "I don't care what you do, I WILL kick you in the teeth one way or another"
 

Yes, I have read mythology...lots.

Of the three you mentioned, only Beowulf is pretty universally considered to be a mere human. Cúchulainn, depending on the legends you read, is the son of Lug. Hercules IS the son of Zeus. Being semi-divine has its advantages across all mythological traditions.

Ture and accurate on all accounts.

As for the "caster v. non-caster" case...this argument/dichotomy has been used/mentioned by players of all editions of D&D (I can't really speak to other fantasy RPGs) to justify all sorts of bizarre "but I should be allowed XYZ cuz the wizard can XYZ..."

Not a good argument. IMHO.

I make it a point, and always have in my own game/world setting, to make sure the non-casters have adequate skills, abilities, talents, specializations to put them on par with caster classes. Can they do all of the same things? No. Of course not. They shouldn't be able to. Nor should a the casters be "nerfed" to keep pace with the non-casters.

But the arguments I see on forums often ("you can do HUGE amounts of damage with a fireball and my fighter can't" or "Why should I bother being a thief when a mage can just cast "Knock") are really just ridiculous, again, IMHO. The fighter can cause damage all day...and with some specialization and/or huge strength do way more damage than my wizard's single fireball per day. My wizard has a knock spell, yes. But unless it is a magically sealed door...or for some reason I have no thief with me, I'm not gonna use it...and if I DO have a thief with me, I'm probably not even gonna bother to memorize it..

There is a definite place for casters and non-casters in every story. Moments for everyone to shine...and be "the hero". It's the reason you don't have/see/read parties that are just all spell-casters (though that's fun enough for a short-lived one shot, of course ;) But don't expect them to alllll go the distance.

"6 mages walk into a dungeon..." No. There isn't any more. That's the end of the joke. They all died at some point because they ran out of spells or didn't have the correct spells memorized/spontaneously able to be cast for the perils they faced.

--SD
 

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